Celebrate Wins
When we were first getting started as a small company, it was a whole lot easier to see culture forming because every tradition was something new. When starting from nothing it can feel like a lot is being made up on the fly. Each pattern creates ripples that become the bigger waves that become the heart and soul of the tribe.
One of those ripples for us started with a small celebration when we hit 100 customers. We paired the celebration with our end of year wrap-up and what became our quarterly kickoff. These check-ins became a cornerstone ceremony. We were able to continually affirm our mission and align across departments as we grew.
The quirky cultural moment that emerged from that first celebration was signing the bottle of Scotch that we all shared while celebrating the milestone and talking about the journey to the next one. For each goal we hit we broke out a new bottle of scotch and everyone who was part of the work would put their name on the bottle as a fun way of saying “I was here”.
Celebrations build trust
Don’t miss the opportunity to celebrate when you hit milestones. It’s easy to skip these moments because there is no direct output on earnings or metrics when you take time to form these bonds. Especially in early days, the team needs to form connections with each other that can evolve into the systems and processes that create value.
When you need to move fast, you have to trust the people around you. There are a lot of routes to trust but sharing a meal or a drink can be one of the fastest. We’re not fully adapted to our world of emails, instant messages, and abstractions, sometimes we need to see the people behind those tools and know that they’re people who we can relate to. Trust allows you to actually offload work because you can be confident the other person has your back.
Celebrations build culture
Celebrations don't need to be big. You can call out good work in a public way on a common slack channel. You can highlight a team effort through awards during a meeting. You can all sign a bottle of scotch. The point is to mark the occasion because without these moments it's easy to feel like we're on a treadmill and celebrations form the moments that mark our lives.
The secret is, culture doesn’t stop forming. Even when a group is bigger or has more traditions, we are still just the sum of the people together in that moment. Celebrating wins gives us the opportunity to continue to form our culture, to realign and continually readjust the direction we're heading.